How do you put over 8000 QSO's in the log with a Multi-Single effort? Bill W9KKN, Levi K6JO and Scott K7ZO joined me only one hour after the close of the ARRL DX SSB contest to talk about how they kept up an extraordinary QSO pace for 48 hours. For perspective, their opening rate was an amazing 402 QSOs per hour. Bill, Levi and Scott talk about how they accomplished an 8,000,000+ point total and offer their tips on how callers can get the Cayman Islands multiplier in their logs. Despite the late hour after a draining weekend of contesting, this was a fun, fast paced chat with three talented and experienced multi-operator contesters. Join our conversation and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you like what you see and hear.
Awesome effort. Very impressive is an understatement. And not a single "please copy" was heard. I didn't listen to the entire interview but they talked a lot about efficiency and how every second counts with the high rates. I would like to ask them if state phonetics are helpful or not. To me "Pennsylvania" comes through better than "Papa Alpha." Or "West Virginia" vs "Whiskey Victor."
For hams who are in the USA and for those who are on DXpeditions from the USA to places like ZF or VP5 or J6 or P4, we are fully cognizant of what state names are. So saying "Tango Xray" or "Mike Echo" provides really no added benefit unless you are very, very weak signalwise. The phonetic usage of state abbreviations is usually done for the hams overseas who are not use to the fact that MO is Missouri while MI is Michigan. On the other side, during really, really high rate hours, you will find guys like VP5M or ZF1A or 8P5A not use any phonetics. We hear pretty well and we get your call 98% of the time. In that two percent, we may reply back with your call phonetically just as a check to make sure we copied it correctly.
Many times I have a sense of feel that I am weak and will give my sec phonetically to save an extra round of transmissions. If the DX station is 10 over nine, I don't worry about it, if he is S5, I do.
Probably not a bad practice. You as the op know how loudly guys in general are hearing you. If everyone is asking for repeats, the phonetics may be necessary.
